In July 2020, during UK lockdown due to Covid-19, I had the idea to make original dress designs from my teens in the decorative wrapping paper I'd been collecting for a couple of decades and mount them on vintage book pages.

Fashion design

In my tweens, I used a plastic template to create designs. The body shop was unrealistic, with a skinny waist and abnormally long legs.

I have updated the designs to a realistic body shape.

Elements of clothes

Real clothes are made with different pieces of fabric and I reflect that by cutting different pieces for the sleeves, collar, cuffs, bow, etc.

To make each piece distinct and to make the finished dress stand out from the background, I drew a black border. It turned out I am not great at cutting or drawing borders!

Cutting machine

I then discovered cutting machines and bought a second-hand Brother ScanNCut DX. The machine cuts the dress elements; I can even place pieces them over specific areas of the scanned patterned paper.

The machine also draws borders but the resulting lines weren't solid. I instead cut slightly larger dress pieces from black card to create a black outline. My earlier designs include drawn borders. All are machine cut to maintain quality and consistency.

crafty geek is a trading name of ArcGlade Services Ltd.